It never took her long to darken any conversation, as from birth she was inclined to see misery in each and every story, and to fabricate some when there was none.

— Elif Shafak

It was always like this. When you spoke the truth, they hated you. The more you talked about love, the more they hated you.

— Elif Shafak

Let us choose one another as companions! Let us sit at each other's feet! Inwardly we have many harmonies - think not That we are only what we see.

— Elif Shafak

Little did he know, back then, that the worth of one's faith depended not on how solid and strong it was, but on how many times one would lose it and still be able to get it back.

— Elif Shafak

Loneliness was an inseparable part of being human.

— Elif Shafak

May love always be with you, and you always surrounded by love

— Elif Shafak

My interest in Sufism began when I was a college student. At the time, I was a rebellious young woman who liked to wrap several shawls of ‘-isms’ around her shoulders: I was a leftist, feminist, nihilist, environmentalist, anarchy-pacifist… I wasn’t interested in any religion and the difference between ‘religiosity’ and ‘spirituality’ was lost to me. Having spent some time of my childhood with a loving grandmother with many superstitions and beliefs, I had a sense the world was not composed of solely material things and there was more to life than I could see. But the truth is, I wasn’t interested in understanding the world. I only wanted to change it.

— Elif Shafak

No reason to feel depressed about being depressed. A depression can be a golden opportunity to collect the pieces and build ourselves anew. Global Souls are always on the move, nomads at heart, connected to various cities, commuters between cultures, both from here and everywhere.

— Elif Shafak

Patience does not mean to passively endure. It means to be farsighted enough to trust the end result of a process

— Elif Shafak

People who would refuse to share their bread shared their insanity instead.-Three Daughters of Eve

— Elif Shafak